1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to selectors, selection methods, and program products that enable sharing of input/output devices by selectively changing a connection between a selector and multiple computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
These days, USB (Universal Serial Bus) becomes the mainstream computer peripheral interface of the input/output devices such as keyboard, mouse, or the like to be connected to a server or PC (Personal Computers). The USB is so widely available that the keyboard or mouse having another peripheral interface is becoming difficult to purchase.
Under the circumstances, there has been proposed the devices having the USB keyboard and USB mouse for selectively connecting one or more computers. The afore-mentioned devices function as selectors provided for sharing the input/output devices by selectively changing the connection between the selector and one or more computers, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-43178 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 1) and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-353145 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 2).
Japanese Patent No. 3,194,082 (hereinafter, referred to as Document 3) has proposed the select operation circuit having the main control circuit and the select circuit, the main control circuit connecting a set of data input devices, the select circuit selectively transmitting input data input via the afore-mentioned set of data input devices to multiple computers.
The above-mentioned selectors to operate with USB, however, simply mechanically change USB signal lines in order to be coupled. In such configuration, attach/detach process has to be implemented whenever the USB signal line is selectively changed. Such process further produces load/unload process on a server, causing the burden to the server and leading to the generation of a wait time during the load/unload process on the server. In addition, depending on the load applied on the server or the system configuration, it will take time to load/unload the driver. Otherwise, a select operation will interrupt the unload process of the driver to implement the load process. Consequently, the system operates unstably or the system comes to a halt and cannot be controlled. Further, Document 3 does not disclose a selector corresponding to the USB devices.